Hello everyone! It seems the entire month of January just disappeared somehow. If anyone knows where it went, feel free to let us know. That being said, we have a lot of updates, a lot of pictures, and a lot of progress! Enjoy this month’s newsletter and be on the lookout for the next one in March!
Room Renovations
Any day now. The project will be 100% finished any day now!! Isabel and I are super excited to finally move back into our room and we are eagerly waiting. The roof is in place, the new glass door has been installed, the lights now turn on and the walls are being painted at this very moment!! It has been a long couple months, but we are almost there and we are extremely excited. Very soon we will be able to buy new furniture and some decorations so that we can prepare for our little baby to be born. A huge thanks goes out to all of you for making this possible. Your donations and your prayers are the backbone of this project, and our entire ministry, so God bless you all. Also a huge shout-out to Valarie Ranton (the director of House of Destiny) for helping us cover the remaining costs of the project. Even though we thought we had raised enough money for the project, with a fairly large buffer, it still ended up being more expensive than we had planned for. Go figure. Thankfully, Valarie covered all of the expenses that went over the budget, and we are extremely grateful for it.
From PayPal to Zeffy (Also budget goals)
A quick little note about donations before we get into the rest of the update. We recently changed our donation platform from PayPal to Zeffy and would strongly encourage all current PayPal donors to switch their subscription over. This is because PayPal charges a standard transaction fee of about 3%. This transaction fee is standard, however Zeffy is a company that offers transaction fee free payments for non-profit organizations. This is a huge deal since that means instead of losing 3% for every donation, we are able to keep that money saving us hundreds of dollars ever year! So once again, if you are one of our financial supporters we kindly ask that you switch from PayPal to Zeffy. All links on this website have now been moved over to the Zeffy link, so just by clicking our donate button you will be taken to the new platform.
On a side note, we are extremely happy to announce that for the month of January, your generosity brought us to 95% of our target budget! In recent months we have hovered around 55% of our target goal, but your generosity has carried through the holiday season and for that we can’t say thank you enough. Your support helps fuel our ability to serve here at House of Destiny, and we are very happy to be here.
Project: Quilt
I (Isabel) have started quilting and love it! I now often spend my Saturdays at the sewing machine, listening to audiobooks while making personal projects or quilts for the kids. My goal is to make enough small blankets for every child who comes through the house. Our kids often arrive at the house with nothing but the clothes on their backs, no special stuffed animals or blankets that remind them of home and help them sleep at night, no photos of their family, nothing. I want each child to have something to take with them when they move on to the next step in their journey, away from our home. This is a big task because we have lots of little ones, and they often come and go very unexpectedly. We will be accepting lots of little girls in the coming months as spaces open up, so I’m going to start making lots of little girl quilts and have them on hand ahead of time!
A missions team from Tree Ministries
This month, we have also had various missionaries come and visit the house and help out! We are so grateful for their help and the love they bring to the kids. One of these mission teams was working with Tree Ministries, a local ministry in Antigua. They loved on babies, cleaned toys, organized bookshelves, and even built us a new baby gate! This baby gate was very necessary to help us separate our rowdy toddlers from the tiny babies when needed. Our sweet little Emilio isn’t so little anymore and when it comes to babies he’s a bit of a bull in a china closet!
A bitter-sweet departure
On another note, we said goodbye to our sweet baby Isabella this week. She came to us at only twenty days old, weighing only four pounds, and was loved beyond measure. Isabella had trouble taking a bottle and was a very small baby the entire time we had her. After eight months of doctor’s appointments, she was diagnosed with special needs. We are not authorized to care for special needs children, so we were forced to look for another placement for her. Within hours of this news, a children’s home run by local missionaries that we know and trust immediately accepted her! Nick and I as well as all of the staff in the home have mourned her leaving us, as she was such a happy, loving baby, but we are so grateful that she will be raised in a loving family that can care for her specific needs. She is one of only five children in this home, so we know she’ll get all of the love and attention she deserves!
Oh. Also were are having a baby girl!!!
This Christmas we also found out some exciting news…..we are having a baby girl!!! We are beyond excited to meet her. Please keep us in your prayers, that we will have a smooth birth, a healthy baby, and praise God for the blessing He has given us.
